First Chapter: Well Read Then Dead by Terrie Farley Moran

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

Well Read Then Dead (A Read 'Em and Eat Mystery) #1 by Terrie Farley Moran, published 2014 by Berkley

First chapter, first paragraph:

"Oh, pu-leeze, Rowena, Anya Seton never measured up to Daphne du Maurier's elegance. I'm shocked you would say such a thing." Jocelyn Kendall, pastor's wife and book club gadfly, crossed and recrossed her legs in perfect tempo with the ever-increasing meter of her rant. Our discussion of Green Darkness was deteriorating rapidly. 

Book description:
Fort Myers Beach. Florida,  is home to Mary “Sassy” Cabot and Bridget Mayfield—owners of the bookstore café, Read ’Em and Eat. 

Read ’Em and Eat is known for its delicious breakfast and lunch treats, along with quite a colorful clientele. Augusta’s cousin and best friend Delia is painfully shy—which makes the news of her murder all the more shocking. Sassy wants to help any way she can. But Augusta wants Delia’s killer found—and she’s not taking no for an answer. 

Includes a buttermilk pie recipe! (publisher)

Would you continue reading, based on the first chapter and book description? 

Sunday Salon: Back to the Library

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. 

I spent most of last week watching the Pope's visit on TV and feeling smug that I also have a Fiat 500L Hatchback!! One of the few if not the only one in town! It is much roomier inside than it looks from the outside. There is a lot of space between my head and the roof, for instance, and lots of leg room in the back seats. Not much of trunk space, tho.

The library has been a good place to visit for books. Here are two I borrowed last week:

The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian Nobel prize winner, published March 10, 2015. 
The Discreet Hero, follows two characters whose lives are destined to intersect: neat, endearing Felícito Yanaqué, a small businessman in Piura, Peru, who finds himself the victim of blackmail; and Ismael Carrera, a successful owner of an insurance company in Lima, who cooks up a plan to avenge himself against the two lazy sons who want him dead.
(publisher)
I gave it four stars and hope to return to the library for more of his books!

An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy, published April 5, 2015. 
On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family lives in solitude in their vast new house. Here, lives intertwine and unravel. A widower struggles with his love for an unmarried cousin. Bakul, a motherless daughter, runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined in a room at the top of the house, a matriarch goes slowly mad; her husband searches for its cause as he shapes and reshapes his garden.

As Mukunda and Bakul grow, Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. He prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, but his thoughts stay with his home, with Bakul, with all that he has lost—and he knows that he must return. (publisher)

Currently reading: 

Murder Plainly Read: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery by Isabella Alan, to be released October 6, 2015; by NAL

An Amish man checks out permanently, but quilt shop owner Angie Braddock’s got this mystery covered… Angie is able to help organize the Rolling Brook library's annual book sale working alongside brash librarian Austina Shaker, a lady who isn’t afraid to make waves to get books to her patrons—even the Amish. Unfortunately, this draws the ire of cranky Bartholomew Belier, an Old Order Amish bishop, who publicly vows to ruin Austina.

After Belier is found dead in her bookmobile, Angie must employ the help of her loyal quilting circle—as well as her beloved French bulldog, Oliver— to prove Austina’s innocence. (publisher)

What books are on your reading shelf this week? 

Book Beginning: The Man Who Fell From the Sky by Margaret Coel

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Man Who Fell From the Sky by Margaret Coel, published September 1, 2015 by Berkley
Genre: mystery
Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O’Malley investigate a lethal link between legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy and a present-day murder…in the Wind River Mountains.

Book beginning:

The narrow dirt road clung to the mountainside between the granite peaks jutting overhead and the drop-off into the valley. Ponderosas, scrub brush, and scruffy undergrowth looked fat and green after the spring rain, greener than Alan Ferbus remembered the Wind River range ever looking. It was the fourth Friday in May. The foliage wouldn't turn gray and dusty until the summer heat set in. Tommy had been locked down in a classroom about as long as any twelve-year-old boy could stand, and since Tommy had a day off from school, they had made plans for a fishing trip....

Page 56:

"Look, Red Bull. If some outsider, as you call the rest of us, got lucky enough to find Cassidy's loot, it would still belong to the tribes here. Nobody could take it away." 

I hadn't realized Butch Cassidy once lived in Wyoming. Makes for an interesting story...

First Chapter: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, published 2005 by Grove Press. 
Literary Awards:
Man Booker Prize (2006), Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Shortlist (2007), Vodafone Crossword Book Award for Popular (2006), National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (2006)

First paragraphs, first chapter:

All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapor, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light, a plume of snow blown high by the winds at its summit. 

Sai, sitting on the veranda, was reading an article about giant squid in an old National Geographic, Every now and then she looked up at Kanchenjunga, observed its wizard phosphorescence with a shiver. The judge sat at the far corner with his chessboard, playing against himself....  

Book description: In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. 

Kiran Desai’s novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices that illuminate the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world. (publisher)

Based on the first paragraphs and the book description, would you keep reading?

Sunday Salon: Autumn Reads

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. 

I have finished a few books this past week:

Season of Salt and Honey by Hannah Tunnicliffe, a contemporary novel set in the Washington State woods about a woman's grief over the death of her fiance, and how she copes in the face of  his mother's disapproval of her. Four stars.

The Flying Circus by Susan Crandall, an historical novel about aerobic flying as entertainment in the 1920s and a romantic triangle. Four stars.

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, a novel set in the 1960s, about a young boy dealing with and investigating the murder of his older sister. 5 stars.

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz, a fourth novel continuing the thrillers of Stieg Larsson. Five stars.

Thanks to Kristina McMorris for a review advance proof of her new historical novel, The Edge of Lost, to be released November 24, 2015 by Kensington. 
Book description from amazon: A compelling novel that moves from Ireland to New York to San Francisco Bay. As her finely crafted characters discover the true nature of loyalty, sacrifice, and betrayal, they are forced to confront the lies we tell--and believe--in order to survive.

I am now reading 

Rainy Day Sisters by Kate Hewitt, published August 4, 2015 by NAL. A story of estranged half sisters reuniting in the English Lake District, when Lucy leaves Boston to take a temporary job at a school in the seaside village in England where her sister Juliet runs a bed-and-breakfast. Enjoying it so far. Love the setting too - Hartley-On-Sea, even though it seems to be raining there all the time. 

I have also started to read, again, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, a novel I had started reading before and mean to finish on my Kindle. 

What books are you reading this week? 

The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady by Susan Wittig Albert

 I love mystery novels with a gardening theme or setting. Would you get into this one?

The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady by Susan Wittig Albert, published September 1, 2015; Berkley
Genre: Southern historical mystery
 ...the summer of 1934 in the small Southern town of Darling, Alabama—the ladies of the Darling Dahlias’ garden club love to solve mysteries… The eleven o’clock lady has always been one of garden club president Liz Lacy’s favorite spring wildflowers. The plant is so named because the white blossoms don’t open until the sun shines directly on them and wakes them up.

But another Eleven O’Clock Lady is never going to wake up again. Rona Jean Hancock—a telephone switchboard operator who earned her nickname because her shift ended at eleven, when her nightlife was just beginning.... (book description)

Book beginning, first paragraph:

In less than an hour, Violet Sims' well-ordered life was going to change. But right now, she was enjoying what in her opinion was the very best hour of a summer's day -- the earliest hour. That was the time when she went out to work in the vegetable garden behind the Darling Diner, which she owned and managed with her friend, Myra May Mosswell. And this hour, on this Saturday, seemed especially perfect. It had been hot and sultry all week, and the day ahead was likely to be another hot one, with the prospect of a storm in the afternoon. But the morning air was still cool and fresh, the dew was a silvery sheen on the ripe and flawless tomatoes, and the sun had just begun to peer over the rooftops of the little town of Darling to see if something of interest might be happening there on this very last day of June 1934. 

Page 56:

"Sarah's birthday?" Lizzy asked. "I've lost track. How old is she?"

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Book Review: Season of Salt and Honey by Hannah Tunnicliffe

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn

Season of Salt and Honey by Hannah Tunnicliffe, published September 1, 2015; Touchstone
Genre: contemporary fiction; women's fiction
Objective rating: 4/5 stars

My comments: Francesca "Frankie" Caputo hides out in her former fiance's family cabin in the Washington State woods, unable to face friends or family after his death in a surfing accident. Her fiance, Alex, used to take her to this cabin, which she finds a refuge after his funeral.

However, Alex's parents want her out of the cabin and charge her with trespassing. She remains anyway, bolstered by friendships with new neighbors and one small child who shows her the forests and the foods one can forage there. Things come to a head when both her boisterous Italian family and Alex's parents come to the cabin, and Frankie finds out the truth about herself and her relationship with her now deceased fiance. 

An excellent novel of loss and family ties, truth and its consequences. A lovely novel revealing family and love relationships and their sometimes complex qualities. 

First chapter, first paragraph:

Aunty Connie's cucumber sandwiches, stripped free of plastic wrap, are lined up on a rectangular plate on Mrs. Gardner's table, pointed tips dried and turning stale, like rows of teeth. Four rows, the jaw of a great white shark. I stare at them too long and feel my father's gaze turn towards me. I force myself to blink. He watches me from across that room filled with people wearing black and charcoal. It isn't the weather for these colors; it's unseasonably hot and the musty smell of clothes pulled from the backs of drawers mingles pungently with spring sweat. 

Teaser, ch. 11:

"...You'd think your mom would be pleased - rapt - that she could offer Frankie a place to get away to think. To be away from it all." 

Based on the first paragraph and excerpts only, would you continue reading?
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.